Friday, 27 July 2007

U.S. Told to Pay $101 Million for Framing 4 Men

BOSTON, July 26 — In what appears to be the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge today ordered the federal government to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit.

Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years in prison.

“It took 30 years to uncover this injustice,” Federal District Judge Nancy Gertner said in announcing her decision. She said the case was about “the framing of innocent men,” adding that “F.B.I. officials allowed their employees up the line to ruin lives.”

The men were exonerated after the discovery of secret F.B.I. memos that were never turned over to state prosecutors or defense lawyers during the trial in 1968. The memos indicated that the government’s key witness, a hit man for the mob named Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, had lied when he said the four men had killed the victim, a low-level mobster, Edward Deegan, known as Teddy.

Mr. Barboza’s motivation was to protect the real killer, and F.B.I. officials went along, the memos suggested, because Mr. Barboza had been helping them solve cases and because the killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an F.B.I. informant.

In her decision today, Judge Gertner forcefully criticized the F.B.I. and the argument made by Justice Department lawyers that federal authorities were not required to share information with state prosecutors, and were not responsible for the results of a state prosecution.

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Charles Miller, said the government would review the judge’s decision before deciding whether to appeal.

In their suit, the men had argued that Boston FBI agents knew that Mr. Barboza lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965 killing. They said Mr. Barboza was protecting a fellow F.B.I. informant, Vincent Flemmi, who was involved in the hit, according to The Associated Press.

The four wrongly convicted men were treated as “acceptable collateral damage” because the F.B.I.’s priority at the time was taking down the Mafia, their lawyers said.

A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities could not be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution and had no duty to share information with the officials who prosecuted Mr. Limone, Mr. Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco, The A.P. said.

The judge awarded $26 million to Mr. Limone, $29 million to Mr. Salvati, $13 million to Mr. Tameleo’s estate and $28 million to Mr. Greco’s estate, as well as awards to the wives and children that brought the total to $101.75. The men’s lawyers had not asked for a specific amount in damages, but in court documents they cited other wrongful conviction cases in which $1 million was awarded for every year of imprisonment.

“Do I want the money? Yes, I want my children, my grandchildren to have things I didn’t have, but nothing can compensate for what they’ve done,” The A.P. quoted Mr. Salvati as saying. He had been sentenced to life in prison as an accessory to murder and served more than 29 years before his sentence was commuted in 1997.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Mr. Limone, who served 33 years in prison before he was freed in 2001. “What I’ve been through — I hope it never happens to anyone else.”

Monday, 16 July 2007

Former Florida death row inmate Juan Melendez tells his story Sunday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson. Melendez was released from Florida's death row in 2002 after spending more than 17 years awaiting execution for a crime he did not commit.

Former Florida death row inmate Juan Melendez tells his story Sunday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson. Melendez was released from Florida's death row in 2002 after spending more than 17 years awaiting execution for a crime he did not commit.

Melendez said he spent 17 years, eight months and one day in a 6-by-9-foot cell on Florida's death row for a crime he didn't commit.

"You always think that the truth will come out," said Melendez, who was 33 when he entered death row. He just had no idea it would take more than 17 years to prove his innocence.

"If I wouldn't have grabbed the Bible, I don't think I would've survived," said Melendez, now 56.

About 35 people gathered Sunday afternoon at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson to hear Melendez's story of how he was falsely convicted of murder and armed robbery and later freed after the court learned that the prosecutor withheld vital evidence in the case, namely a taped confession from the real killer.

Melendez is very clear about who freed him.

"I was not saved by the system. I was saved in spite of the system," he said. "I was saved by the grace of God."

And by a praying mother. "My mom, she's Catholic to the bones," he said to some laughter from the audience.

Melendez said he shares his testimony in part to encourage the country's leaders to rethink the death penalty.

The Tennessee General Assembly recently took a step to re-examine the death penalty. Legislators passed a bill to study the issue over the next year.

But Melendez doesn't want it to stop there, and neither does a group of concerned citizens and clergy that is calling for a state moratorium on the death penalty while the issue is studied. Several are members of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing.

Soon, the group will ask the Jackson City Council to pass a resolution urging Gov. Phil Bredesen to issue a moratorium. TCASK members held a press conference Sunday afternoon outside Mother Liberty CME Church to announce their plans.

Daryll Coleman, pastor of Mother Liberty, found it fitting that the press conference take place on church grounds.

"I believe in stressing social justice," Coleman said. "We (the church) can serve as a symbol of equal and proper treatment for all."

Shelby and Davidson counties already have passed resolutions asking Bredesen to put a moratorium on the death penalty over the next year, said Elbon Kilpatrick, an ordained minister and member of St. Mary's Catholic Church.

Kilpatrick said the death penalty fails to uphold moral standards. "Why do people kill people to show that killing someone is wrong?"

City Councilman Johnny Dodd said that question bothers him, too. Dodd said he will support a resolution calling on Bredesen to enact a moratorium.

"You need to be 100 percent that the person committed the crime," he said. "We need to be cautious when you give people the death penalty."

Local NAACP President Harrell Carter said there is no question that the death penalty system is broken.

"The system has to be put on notice that it has a price to pay if it's wrong," Carter said.

Melendez described to the captivated audience at St. Mary's the horrid conditions of the cell he shared with rats and roaches. He and other death row inmates were allowed only four hours of recreation time a week if it wasn't raining. And there had to be only a dark cloud in the sky for the prison to call off recreation for "inclement weather," he said.

"After 10 years, I wanted out of there," Melendez said.

He fell into a deep depression and turned to suicidal thoughts. He then described what happened the day he was going to take his life.

He passed word on to "a runner," a nickname for another inmate not on death row, to get him a plastic garbage bag. He took that garbage bag and twisted it up to make a rope and fashioned a noose. Before he put it around his neck, he started thinking, "I better (lie) down and think about this a little more."

He fell into a deep sleep. He had a beautiful, vivid dream about his life back in Puerto Rico when he was young. In the dream, he could feel the sun, see the palm trees and even see four dolphins in the water.

In the dream, he said, "I'm so happy. I look to the shore. It's a lady waving at me."

That lady was his mother. That dream was a godsend, he said. It gave him hope.

Every time he would get depressed, he said he would just ask God to send him another beautiful dream.

He also learned how to read, write and speak English in prison.

He worked as a migrant worker before he went to prison. Two of his biggest mistakes in life, he said, were when he stopped listening to his mama and when he dropped out of school. He said he is grateful for the men on death row who taught him English.

He had originally moved to the United States from Puerto Rico in search of the American dream.

Anne Abernathy Wade, one of those in the audience, said she was moved by Melendez's story. Fifty years ago as a Youth in Government student at the former Jackson High School, she wrote an imaginary bill to abolish the death penalty for an assignment.

"I just felt that it was wrong," she said. "I was 16 years old."

That feeling hasn't changed 50 years later, Wade said.

She held up a bumper sticker that read, "The Death Penalty, WWJD (What Would Jesus Do)."

Today, Melendez works as a construction worker in New Mexico when he is not traveling sharing his story. He lives with his girlfriend, Judi Caruso. She is a criminal attorney.

Melendez's story will be featured in an upcoming documentary by Puerto Ricans Against the Death Penalty.

Melendez still holds fast to his dreams.

"I'm still a dreamer," he said. "I pray that in my lifetime I can see the death penalty abolished."

Anyone who has followed the sagas of Paris Hilton or the Haddonfieldteenagers who marauded through a neighbor's home probably know that justiceis not blind.

Yet, it also appears that justice sometimes cannot be found, even in lifeand death cases.

A Superior Court judge last Monday dropped murder charges against a man whohad served 22 years of a life sentence. A jury had declined to impose thedeath penalty sought by prosecutors.

It turns out that DNA testing not available in 1985 couldn't connect ByronHalsey to the murder and sexual assault of his live-in girlfriend's8-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. Test results implicated another man,Clifton Hall, who lived in the same rooming house as the children andHalsey. After testifying against Halsey in 1988, Hall later was jailed forcommitting sexual assaults.

Halsey is the 205th convicted person nationally and the fifth inmate in NewJersey to be exonerated through DNA evidence since 1973. Since 1976, morethan 1,000 inmates have been put to death. Because DNA is not available orallowed to be considered in every post-conviction case, it is unknown howmany people may be wrongly imprisoned or put to death.

Halsey's case and the others like it make a compelling case for abolishingthe death penalty -- or even the threat of capital punishment -- in NewJersey and other states.

A legislative commission has recommended that New Jersey abolish its deathpenalty. It has not been carried out since being reinstated in 1976. Thecommission found that not only was it not a deterrent to crime, it also costNew Jersey taxpayers a premium to maintain a death row.

It is not clear whether there is the political will to do, although moststate residents support life without the possibility of parole over thedeath penalty, recent polls show.

The commission found that life in prison would provide sufficient safety forthe community against murderers. The money saved by abolishing death rowcould then be redirected to provide more support and assistance to thefamilies of murder victims.

Some people might argue the problem with the death penalty is the reluctanceof officials to use it. Or, that the error rate is too small to eliminatethis ultimate penalty. But the error rate isn't zero, either.

Even if mistakes are rare, one wrongful death should be intolerable. Ifmurder is wrong for the individual, execution is certainly wrong for thestate.

Saturday, 14 July 2007

Ex-death row inmate to speak at St. Mary'sInnocent man freed after spending 17 years behind bars

A former Florida death row inmate will speak about his experiences at St. Mary's Catholic Church on Sunday. Juan Melendez also will join a coalition of Jackson faith leaders and the local NAACP for an afternoon press conference Sunday at Mother Liberty Church, according to a Friday press release.

Melendez was released from Florida's death row in 2002 after spending more than 17 years under a death sentence for a crime he did not commit, the release said.

He became the 99th death row inmate to be exonerated and freed in the modern death penalty era.

Since that time, Melendez has traveled across the country speaking about his experiences, the release said.

Melendez comes to Tennessee at a crucial time for death penalty reform as the state legislature recently passed a study commission bill to thoroughly examine the death penalty over the next year, the release said.

As a state, Tennessee is moving forward in death penalty reform, but some jurisdictions are not satisfied. Tennessee's two largest counties, Shelby and Davidson, both passed resolutions calling on Governor Bredesen to enact a moratorium while the study commission is in effect, the release said.

A coalition of religious leaders, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and concerned citizens has been formed to call on the Jackson City Council to enact a similar resolution.

Juan Melendez will offer remarks at the press conference, along with the NAACP Jackson chapter's president and faith leaders, at 3 p.m.

Melendez will be speaking at 6:00 p.m. at St. Mary's church about his experiences.

He became the 99th death row inmate to be exonerated and freed in the modern death penalty era.

Since that time, Melendez has traveled across the country speaking about his experiences, the release said.

Melendez comes to Tennessee at a crucial time for death penalty reform as the state legislature recently passed a study commission bill to thoroughly examine the death penalty over the next year, the release said.

As a state, Tennessee is moving forward in death penalty reform, but some jurisdictions are not satisfied. Tennessee's two largest counties, Shelby and Davidson, both passed resolutions calling on Governor Bredesen to enact a moratorium while the study commission is in effect, the release said.

A coalition of religious leaders, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and concerned citizens has been formed to call on the Jackson City Council to enact a similar resolution.

Juan Melendez will offer remarks at the press conference, along with the NAACP Jackson chapter's president and faith leaders, at 3 p.m.

Melendez will be speaking at 6:00 p.m. at St. Mary's church about his experiences.

Friday, 6 July 2007

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has signed a revised pardon for former death-rowinmate Earl Washington Jr. based on his innocence of the crimes for which hewas nearly executed.

Washington was convicted of the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca LynnWilliams in Culpeper. In 1985, he came within nine days of execution. DNAtesting led to his pardon by Gov. Jim Gilmore in 2000.

However, at that time, Gilmore said his pardon did not mean Washington wasinnocent, only that a jury would not have convicted him in light of the DNAevidence.

WHY THE NEW PARDON? "It is now evident that Mr. Washington was and isinnocent of the crimes against Mrs. Williams . . . I have decided it is justand appropriate to grant this revised absolute pardon that reflects Mr.Washington's innocence," says Kaine's proclamation signed Tuesday.

BACKGROUND: After Washington, who is mildly retarded, was arrested in 1983on unrelated charges, he confessed to raping and murdering Williams butquickly recanted.

Last year, a federal jury awarded Washington $2.25 million after findingthat police fabricated evidence against him by feeding him details of thecrime that only the killer could have known. However, that award wascontested and, in March, Washington reached a $1.9 million settlement withthe state.

Washington has married since his release. He works for an assisted-livingprogram in Virginia Beach and lives in one of the program's apartments.

HOW MUCH OF THAT MONEY DOES WASHINGTON GET? Robert T. Hall, a Fairfax lawyerwho also represents Washington, said that after legal and other expenses,Washington realized more than $1 million.

Roughly three-quarters of that was used to purchase a lifetime annuity thatpays about $2,800 to $3,400 a month. The annuity is guaranteed for 20 yearsso that if Washington dies, his wife, Pam, can benefit.